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English in the News (Media Studies)

By English Drama Media

Release : 2008-10-01

Genre : Education, Books, Professional & Technical

Kind : ebook

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Heads must roll over the SATs debacle The summer of 2008 was turbulent in many ways. Whilst the financial markets crashed around our ears, the education world watched a parallel disaster unfold in the world of testing. It was the sort of thing that a lazy journalist would call a 'roller coaster ride'. Even though I'm a parasite on journalists (lazy or Stakhanovite) I'd say it was more like one of those long fairground slides--the ride may be bumpy but the only way it goes is down. So whilst bankers bemoaned their lost bonuses, headteachers worried about lost SATs scripts. There are those who would blame the import of American capitalism in the shape of the SATs contractor ETS after first AQA and then Edexcel (themselves owned by US testing and publishing company Pearson) had failed to show sufficient entrepreneurial spirit. If inventiveness was the objective, ETS certainly delivered, with markers sent to the wrong meetings, scripts not collected or lost, teenage markers, unmarked scripts sent back to schools and, in the case of one Shropshire school that contacted the BBC, 176 pupils reported as 'absent' for a Shakespeare paper they all sat. [pounds sterling]156 million might seem a rather high price for such entertainment, even when it has been reduced by curtailing the contract after just one year. We've spent millions on what even the Education Secretary conceded to the BBC was a 'shambles'. And someone else has to be paid to sort it out (step forward, again, Edexcel--none of the other boards want to touch this poisoned chalice).

English in the News (Media Studies)

By English Drama Media

Release : 2008-10-01

Genre : Education, Books, Professional & Technical

Kind : ebook

(0 ratings)
Heads must roll over the SATs debacle The summer of 2008 was turbulent in many ways. Whilst the financial markets crashed around our ears, the education world watched a parallel disaster unfold in the world of testing. It was the sort of thing that a lazy journalist would call a 'roller coaster ride'. Even though I'm a parasite on journalists (lazy or Stakhanovite) I'd say it was more like one of those long fairground slides--the ride may be bumpy but the only way it goes is down. So whilst bankers bemoaned their lost bonuses, headteachers worried about lost SATs scripts. There are those who would blame the import of American capitalism in the shape of the SATs contractor ETS after first AQA and then Edexcel (themselves owned by US testing and publishing company Pearson) had failed to show sufficient entrepreneurial spirit. If inventiveness was the objective, ETS certainly delivered, with markers sent to the wrong meetings, scripts not collected or lost, teenage markers, unmarked scripts sent back to schools and, in the case of one Shropshire school that contacted the BBC, 176 pupils reported as 'absent' for a Shakespeare paper they all sat. [pounds sterling]156 million might seem a rather high price for such entertainment, even when it has been reduced by curtailing the contract after just one year. We've spent millions on what even the Education Secretary conceded to the BBC was a 'shambles'. And someone else has to be paid to sort it out (step forward, again, Edexcel--none of the other boards want to touch this poisoned chalice).

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